http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/ en-us rdm@cfcl.com Sat, 27 May 2006 18:09:58 -0800 http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/001108.html Having three screens up 24/7, it's easy to accumulate windows. I typically have several dozen available on my Mac, spread across a few dozen apps. In general, this is quite convenient. When I'm not using an app, I hide it (via cmd-H) and all of its windows disappear. If I only want to get a few windows out of the way, I WindowShade them or send them to the Dock. Unfortunately, these approaches don't work very well for applications that... http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/001053.html I'm a big fan of Wikipedia. I use it both as a personal reference tool and as an easy way to add depth to web-based documents. However, I think that its utility might be improved by a bit more mechanical augmentation. This augmentation could take (at least :-) three forms: generated pages, automatic content, and requested content.... http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/001045.html Previous weblog entries (Ontiki: an ontology-aware wiki, Mechanically-augmented wikis) have discussed the possibility of creating structured wikis, using mechanical (i.e., software) augmentation. This entry is a very early status report, discussing my initial experiments and early progress in this effort.... http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/001010.html Spotlight, introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), is Apple's new desktop search feature. Although it isn't perfect, it's quite a useful addition to other forms of file-system navigation. So, when SpiderWorks asked me to write a book on the topic, I jumped at the chance. Now, after a year of off-and-on effort, the book is available for purchase.... http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/001002.html I've been thinking about ways to augment wikis with mechanically-harvested information, navigation aids, etc. http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000999.html I have been thinking about ways to integrate some large applications and frameworks into an even larger system. In line with the Perl virtue of Laziness, I'd like to write as little code as possible, particularly if it means making changes to the apps themselves. At the same time, I'd like to avoid supporting a plethora of interfaces and protocols. Fortunately, I may have hit upon a useful approach. Technorati Tags: DBI-Link, DBI-Link, DBMS, ontology, Perl DBI, PostgreSQL, RDBMS, semantic... http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000998.html Programmers who are facile with multiple languages frequently combine them in single projects, to great effect. http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000950.html LinkedIn bills itself as "an online network of more than 4.8 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries". My spouse Vicki Brown has a weblog entry that gives a general introduction, but it says little about the graph-related aspects of the network. So, here are some initial observations, based on a day or two of my own explorations...... http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000942.html I spend far too much time following links in www.digg.com. http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000910.html I've been using both markup languages (e.g., troff, HTML) and macro pre-processors (e.g., cpp, m4) for a couple of decades now. http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000903.html Conceptual graphs (CGs) are "a system of logic based on the existential graphs of Charles Sanders Peirce and the semantic networks of artificial intelligence."... The notions map quite well to the ones in Jeff Hawkins' book "On Intelligence", modulo differences in perspective, terminology, etc. FYI, John Sowa is an expert on knowledge representation systems. http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000902.html Ontiki is a proposed design for an ontology-aware wiki, combining a wiki's convenience and freedom with the strengths of ontology-based systems. http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000681.html http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000626.html Yesterday, I noticed that my right hand hurt when I tried to pick things up. I couldn't remember doing anything to it, so I started having disturbing thoughts about possible "creeping disabilities". I make my living typing and using a mouse, so this is not an inconsequential issue to me. I mentioned this to Vicki, so today she asked me how my hand was. It seemed better and I said so. Then, a bit later, I was driving our... http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog/archives/000517.html One of the cool things about working at SLAC is being around "Big Science". I had lunch the other day with a physicist and his grad student (or so I surmised) and learned something new and interesting. I had picked a nice shady picnic table for my lunch. The scientist and his colleague joined me and started chatting about their experiments. I listened in on their conversation and, eventually, got brave enough to ask a few questions. The scientist...